Making pacenotes also called the recce, takes place on public roads open for normal traffic. This means that all normal traffic rules and speed limits apply. In World Championship rallies the organisers even put a GPS based tracker on the cars to monitor the speeds of all cars, but traditional speed controls are also applied.

In the World Championship rallies recce takes place over two days, usually Tuesday and Wednesday before the rally. In Finnish Championship the recce takes place on Friday before the rally. Each specialstage can be recced twice.

There is the common misconception that the notes are made by the co-driver. The co-driver does of course physically “makes” the pacenotes, but he/she puts in the notes is dictated by the driver. On the first passage the driver dictates the notes, describing the road in predetermined symbols. These indicate the sharpness of the corner and the distance between corners. There are also additional symbols to describe special features (eg. crests) and the “nature” of the road. On the second passage, the co-driver reads these notes to the driver and he makes possible corrections. On the rally itself, the co-driver reads these notes to the driver to help him to know what is ahead. The co-drivers also then work on the notes in the evening in their hotel room, because many times the handwriting produced in a car on bumpy roads leaves rooms for improvement. The drivers may also watch the stages from videos made during the recce to memorise them.

There are as many styles of pacenotes as there are drivers, but basically there are two main ways to describe the road: Numbers (eg. 1-9 like used by Jari-Matti Latvala), where 1 is a flat out corner and 9 is a hairpin. Or there are descriptive notes used by most Finnish drivers ( eg. Flat (right of left – Hairpin (left/right)).